The first announcement from Sound & Fury was that they intend to offend. Whether they do offend depends upon one’s own sensibilities, but you’re likely to never stop laughing even if they do. Patrick Hercamp, Richard Maritzer and Ryan Adam Wells make up Sound & Fury, a vaudeville-nouveau troupe that performs this twisted American Wild West adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus.
Hercamp plays the renowned Doc Faustus as a clueless dude who dabbles in dark magic just to play tricks on people. By selling his soul to the devil, he gets a demon (Mephistopheles, played by Maritzer) to do his bidding for the next 24 years. The extent of their parody on both Doctor Faustus and the Western movie genre knows no bounds. They treat the story with a great deal of intelligence, consciously calling their interpretation of the West ‘revisionist history,’ but filling every other moment with both witticisms and vulgarity. The groans from the audience were not necessarily from deliciously bad jokes, but from ones that pushed the boundaries as much as possible.
The story sends them into a variety of hi-jinks with a surprise around every corner and even a historical twist on the ending. Interspersed is Wells’ crooning swoon-worthy narrations in the form of folk ballads. Other high points have no reference to Faustus at all, but came from their sharp witty wordplay (mishearing ‘thesaurus’ as different word), half-improvised, half-scripted pranks on fellow actors and incorporations of audience reactions into their lines. It’s absolutely baffling how they are able to pack so much into a bit of entertainment and speaks to the talent of the trio of comedians.
Don’t forget to add references to Western Hollywood heroes John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart into the mix and Doc Faustus is a recipe for the one of best comedies to be found at the Fringe.
